Barbaric trophies, Thalric decided, and the gaudy ostentation gave him back some of his lost control, because here, at least, was a human thing, if only a desire to show off. Whatever Argastos now was, this was a part of him Thalric could relate to. He had seen similar trophies even in the possession of Imperial officers, and they had been mere bragging boasts of their owner’s self-importance.
Che’s hand found his arm and squeezed it slightly, and then she was sitting down, calmly and confidently, the first of them to do so. Seda followed suit a second behind, choosing a seat across the table from her, with Tisamon inevitably taking station at her shoulder. With that, there was nothing else but for Tynisa to do likewise, but Thalric was cursed if he was going to hover on his feet like a house-slave. Maure had already slipped in beside Che, and so he ended up at the end of the table facing that throne.
Their host arrived, just not all at once. Thalric had the best view of its progress, which he regretted. There was a scuttling and a massing within the intricate carving of the throne, and the things previously only represented there were now springing from the wood, a dusty swarm of empty shells, wing-cases, sightless eyes and hollow mandibles, the tiny bloodless cadavers of a thousand crawling things amalgamating and writhing, and growing ever greater until they had transformed into the slouching shape of a seated man. Thalric just stared, tightly motionless but unable to tear his eyes from the sight.
Then the scuttling dead things began disintegrating, a shedding rain of chitin flakes and segments drifting away, and revealed was Argastos, clad in his mail, with his easy, empty smile and those blank white eyes.
From somewhere inside him, a part of Thalric rose up and gave himself a slap, because he had been staring like some superstitious Commonwealer peasant at this show. And it was a show. What was the point of this, if not to play to the crowd? We’ve seen him pop in and out like a sergeant in a brothel. Why the grand entrance, if not to awe the newcomers? And with that thought he managed to muster a reasonable head of contempt sufficient to take the edge off his fear. Well, maybe you can still be taken down a step, Argastos.
There was a bowl in front of him. He assured himself it had always been there. In this bad light, who knew? Now Helma Bartrer, Mistress of the Great College, was fetching some sort of cauldron, and Thalric realized that, of all things, she was about to serve them.
But, of course, that’s her place in Argastos’s world.
What she decanted into his bowl looked, in the unhealthy light, like greasy grey dishwater tinted with rot.
‘You have no idea,’ Argastos stated, ‘how long I have been waiting for you. Long enough that I ceased searching the future for some hope of deliverance, centuries ago.’
Che and Seda exchanged glances and the Beetle inquired, ‘And who did you think you were waiting for?’
The Moth smiled easily. He possessed the sort of confident, self-satisfied manner and elegant good looks that made Thalric’s palms itch. ‘You, exactly you. A new kind of magician, not tied to the old and yet with power, true power. I see the mark of the old Masters on the two of you, clear as day, and yet just look at you! Are you Skryres of my kinden? Are you Manipuli of the Spiders or Mosquito Sarcads? You are not.’
He did not sound damning about that, either. Thalric might have expected contempt, but Argastos was playing a deeper game.
‘Beetles, Wasps, Ants — the inheritors of the world,’ the Moth continued admiringly. ‘Look at you. Look at him, a typical specimen.’ He jabbed his finger at Thalric himself, who twitched in response, and had to press his hands down against the table to keep his Art in check.
‘Not a grain of magic in him,’ Argastos went on, ‘and yet his kind, your kin — the Apt — are the great masters of today, swarming over the earth, lords and ladies of the new world. Don’t think I have not witnessed it, even locked away in here. Between then and now, I have had visitors whose minds have shown me all.’
There’s a pleasant thought, Thalric reflected unhappily, as he cast a glance around at the oppressively confining walls. They only rose to around head-height, with the cave-like ceiling arching high above, and they seemed. . less than solid, as though there were gaps and holes in them, or shapes. . His skin crawled.
‘You don’t resent us for taking away the world you knew, then?’ Seda asked the Moth haughtily. ‘Or the diminishing of your people?’
‘You overestimate how much I care about my kinden,’ Argastos replied sharply, making Helma Bartrer twitch. ‘I owe them a great deal, yes indeed, and it will be paid back, every drop. I do not begrudge you, Empress of the Wasps. Your kind and her kind, all the Apt, you have built well. You have built more than we ever did, perhaps. And, believe me, I am the only man in the world who can say this, for I remember my own time clearly — no false nostalgia for me. I am a thousand years of watching the world turn, and everything you have built is built on my triumphs. If not for me, there would be nothing but the Worm.’
‘That’s a grand claim,’ Che observed cautiously.
‘Is it?’ Argastos still sounded very pleasant, very well-mannered, but Thalric kept hearing something hollow resonating in the man’s words, some agenda prowling behind them as if trying to fight its way clear. He tried to catch Maure’s eye, in the hope that the woman had some insight, but the halfbreed was staring down at her bowl and keeping her eyes well away from Argastos.
‘That was their sole intent, to cover the world with their kind, to leave nothing else under the sun or beneath the earth but themselves — not even their slaves once they had no more use for them,’ Argastos explained. ‘The long wars of the Inapt kinden led them to that. In the end they could not feel safe while any other kinden shared their world. And I stopped them. I was War Master of the great host, I won the battles, I drove them back into their holes. And, when the time came, it was I who made the decision to rid the world of them entirely, no matter the cost, so that we could have a future secure from their resurgence.’
The hard tone creeping into that rich voice was exactly what Thalric had been expecting.
‘Are we supposed to applaud you?’ Seda enquired.
‘Why not? Is what I accomplished to be considered nothing? To have been the saviour of the whole world? Who else could say that, before or after me? You must see this — especially you two, the magician-queens of this latter age. You must understand me. I have brought you here so that you can know me.’
‘You did not bring us here,’ Che said, almost half-heartedly. Seda was merely looking thoughtful.
‘I have brought you here,’ Argastos repeated, ‘and I appeal to you both. To the Beetle, for justice; to the Wasp, for revenge. Is it just that I should be trapped here for all eternity, become a martyr to my own life’s work? Should I not plot my vengeance?’
And something must have happened to the light, then, though it hardly seemed brighter, because now Thalric could see the walls around them in detail, and saw that they were not walls at all, and that the maze had not been a maze. The great mantis shell strung behind Argastos’s throne was only one trophy amongst hundreds.
Armour, ranks and ranks of it, stretching back into the gloom on every side, hanging empty and hollow like the insect carapace suspended above. Thalric’s eyes flicked from suit to suit. The vast majority of it was Mantis-kinden work, that ornate and intricately worked mail and plate that collectors paid ridiculous sums for, but here was a collection that all Helleron would have beggared itself to acquire, each suit unique, yet each following the same aesthetic. How many Mantis dreams lie buried here? And his eyes moved on from helm to faceless helm, over glittering gold, enamel in green and black, spines and blades and elegantly shaped curves, that no smith now living could perhaps have wrought.